NTEN offers nonprofit techies like me the opportunity to connect with other professionals like Andrew Means who is also a champion for NTEN. Andrew is the founder of ”Do Good Data” Conference (register here). He is offering some great incentives to donate to NTEN:

“Lastly, I want to invite you to join me in supporting nonprofit technology. NTEN, an organization that has been very supportive and influential for Data Analysts for Social Good, helps nonprofits make smart technology decisions and provides a community for nonprofit technology leaders. As part of my thanks to them, I am committing to raise $1,000 for their year-end campaign and I’m inviting you to help support my campaign. To help provide motivation I’m offering a couple fun incentives! Anyone who gives $50 or more will receive one free webinar from Data Analysts for Social Good. Anyone who gives $150 or more will get a 30 minute phone consultation with me. And anyone who gives $500 or more will receive one free pass to Do Good Data 2014. Every contribution will help so please give $10, $20, or more to this important cause.”

Andrew also offered to write this terrific guest post about using data to make better decisions for your GivingTuesday and year end fundraising campaigns.

Using Data To Make the Most of Your #GivingTuesday and Year-End Giving Campaigns by Andrew Means

December 3rd #GivingTuesday, a movement calling for an international day of giving as we head into the holiday season. Even a little bit of data and testing mentality can go a long way. It is very easy to get caught up in the busy-ness of the season, the craziness of working at a nonprofit, and the multiple hats you are inevitably wearing to not step back and think critically about your work. Hopefully these 4 simple steps can help spark a conversation and a more critical look at your fundraising process.

1. Get social (strategically)

When the official name of the campaign includes a hashtag, you know it’s going to be social. To take advantage, your organization should have a social media strategy. Organizations that flourish during these kinds of campaigns didn’t get on Twitter yesterday. A strong social presence takes time and energy to nurture but on days like #GivingTuesday it can really pay off. Be sure you have a good tool to monitor tweets using the campaign hashtag so you can discover new potential supporters and engage with them.

2. Audit your giving experience

One of the things I do at The Impact Lab is to help organizations better understand the donor experience. For example, do you know what percentage of people complete a donation? Every time a donor clicks your site to donate and then bounces away before completing the donation, you are leaving money on the table.

If your organization uses Google Analytics, set-up a goal to track how many people fully complete a donation. This way you can see how many people drop off and where. If you’re seeing more than 20% or 25% of people bouncing away during the donation process you should seriously ask if there is a way to simplify your giving process.

3. Get the right data

As you think about your donation process you want to make sure you are striking the balance between user experience and getting useful data from donors. You certainly need to record the appropriate information to make the transaction but often times you can easily collect other pieces of information.

One way to ensure you get useful information without burdening the user is to collect information automatically. For example, it might be helpful to know what link the user clicked on to get to your website. Use things like standard referral codes to see where they are coming from. This way you can get useful information without the donor ever needing to take more time to answer an additional question.

4. Segment New Donors

Not all donors are the same. Treating them as if they were leaves money on the table and can actually be detrimental to your goals. When making #GivingTuesday appeals, what type of donor might respond well to this campaign? Or if you get a bunch of new donors with your awesome social media strategy (see pt 1) don’t treat them the same as the donors that give consistently to you every month. Learning to segment donors is as much art as science but every organization can benefit from taking that step.

How will you make the most of your data for improving the results of your year end giving campaigns?